Promotion and marketing can be tricky for businesses who are trying to get across a certain message. It can be hard to target a specific audience while maintaining brand integrity and just being plain appealing.
The same is true with an event, too. Getting across the message and purpose of the event while keeping expectations in check is difficult, but not impossible. By digging deep into your bag of marketing tricks, you can actually gain a lot of traction before the date even hits.
So, a business event can help you gain tons of attention, but how do you get it attention before the event has started? It’s not that difficult to accomplish – just read these tips to see how it’s done.
Contact the local press/media
All in all, it’s a good idea to keep things local, particularly if your business itself thrives on the local scene. It’s safe to assume that most people who live in your area will be tuned into the local news, so you should use this power.
Submitting your story to the local press is, in essence, free marketing. In some cases you’ll have to pay for a published story, but if the press get wind of the event themselves you won’t. I’d recommend you go down this channel anyway, though. It’s easy publicity, on the scale of a city or town.
If you do manage to get a story going, emphasise that the event is focused on local businesses. This will get them on your side, and foster a lot of that goodwill that you’ll need. Plus, the more local businesses who are aware that something’s happening, the more will show up!
Work with a digital marketing company
The power of outsourcing for modern companies is rather easy to leverage, what with the bevy of options available. However, not every digital marketing company has a channel that specialises in events, so be careful with your choice.
A provider like Maximize Digital Media, for example, is one such company that can offer event promotion services. Social media and digital marketing have made it for even the smallest of businesses to boost their online presence, and this is one way to do that.
Plus, outsourced event marketing gives you more time to focus on the actual event. Once you’ve factored in your budget and how much you have left over, it’ll be easier to allocate marketing resources.
Reach out to industry websites
Since this event is surrounding your own company, it’s a smart move to market it via related channels. For example, if your company deals with sports gear, then it makes sense to work with sports websites and outlets.
If on the other hand, your sports company reached out to a mortgage website, you’re not playing to your audience. You must try and contact websites and related outlets that can push the event to your desired audience.
This could be in the form of a guest post, where someone from your business writes an article for a related website. Or, you could request that your digital advertising material be displayed on that related website.
